SCIENTIFIC EFFICIENCY OF GROUND-BASED TELESCOPES

摘要

I scanned the six major astronomical journals of 2008 for all 1589 papers that are based on new data obtained from ground-based optical/IR telescopes worldwide. Then I collected data on numbers of papers, citations to them in 3+ years, the most-cited papers, and annual operating costs. These data are assigned to four groups by telescope aperture. For instance, while the papers from telescopes with an aperture 7?m average 1.29 more citations than those with an aperture of 2 to 4?m, this represents a small return for a factor of four difference in operating costs. Among the 17 papers that have received ≥100 citations in 3+ years, only half come from the large (7?m) telescopes. I wonder why the large telescopes do so relatively poorly and suggest possible reasons. I also found that papers based on archival data, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, produce 10.6% as many papers and 20.6% as many citations as those based on new data. Also, the 577.2 papers based on radio data produced 36.3% as many papers and 33.6% as many citations as the 1589 papers based on optical/IR telescopes.